vanilla latte
by decrescence
Summary: Coffee, misunderstandings, and 'I love you's. SasuSaku. AU.


_Because sometimes_

_The tiniest, littlest words_

_Are the ones that mean the most._

* * *

"Come on, Sasuke-kun! Just say it!"

Sasuke watched as his girlfriend of eleven months—_it's almost our one year anniversary_, she kept reminding him, _it's been a whole __**year,**__ Sasuke-kun!_—reached across the chestnut tabletop and intertwined her hands with his. She gripped his fingers playfully, almost like a young child would, and gazed at him with pristine mint green eyes that he had always been able to read like an open book.

He raised a dark eyebrow, giving her an expression that said plainly, "Say what?"

_"I love you,"_ she mouthed inaudibly, treating the words like a secret only the two of them knew. She grinned, and her face flooded with warmth.

Sakura pouted at Sasuke's almost nonexistent response, although she had been expecting just as much from him and his unromantic ways. "He gets it from his father," Mikoto always told her with a docile smile (which was replaced by a light frown whenever she noticed her son was acting especially detached.) "Fugaku was just the same."

Sakura leaned over the petite, caramel-colored table, still holding onto his hands like she was afraid of letting go.

"Do it for me, will you? Please?" she pressed. "Even after all this time, you barely hug me in public, and you never hold my hand—"

"—I am now, aren't I?"

"Naruto isn't afraid to hug Hinata or hold her hand in front of anyone!" Sakura continued, ignoring his interjection. "He's always all over her, and it's so easy to tell he loves her, but _you_—Sasuke-kun, you just—"

Sasuke let out an exasperated sigh as Sakura trailed off, earning himself a hard glare from the pair of greengreengreen eyes that he had always thought were so very lovely. Not that he would ever tell her that, though.

She looked so pretty right then, with her lower lip poked out childishly and a faint scowl painted across her delicate features. Her cherry blossom hair—which she had insisted on growing out since _apparently_ he, Sasuke, liked girls with long hair—was arranged in a relaxed fashion, her rosette curls tumbling freely down her shoulders like a pastel pink waterfall.

She looked so pretty that he could barely find words to describe her.

To be perfectly honest, Sasuke didn't care if Sakura's hair was long or short, or whether or not she wore make-up or any of that stuff girls caked their faces with these days. It didn't matter how she looked or dressed; he'd still think she was pretty because she was Sakura and he was Sasuke, and that's how it worked.

Aa, but he couldn't possibly explain it to her.

Sasuke sighed again, propping an elbow on the wooden café table as he took a sip of his coffee, which, he thought, wincing, was much too sweet for his taste. He set it down next to the various slices of cake and jelly doughnuts that he had purchased for Sakura, his nose crinkling as he remembered that no, she hadn't thanked him for treating her today. And she hadn't thanked him for taking her out yesterday, either. Or the day before that.

He almost grinned at the irony.

"And Naruto buys Hinata flowers every week!" Sakura rambled on, her hands encircling the scarlet mug in front of her. She was obviously still upset. "I've seen the bouquets at her door!"

"I bought you flowers on your birthday."

"Naruto buys Hinata flowers every week!"

"I can buy you flowers every week if you want, Sakura. Heck, I could even buy you your own castle if you wanted one."

A smile immediately exploded onto Sakura's face at Sasuke's comment, and she pressed her lips into a thin line as a lame attempt to keep it from spreading. It didn't matter much though, since Sasuke had already seen the little twinkle in her eyes and committed it to his permanent memory.

His heart panged twice, the first time gently, and the second time more violently.

"Are you," he began slowly, feeling an odd sensation of jealousy pushing away his initial contentment at her laughter. "Are you implying that you'd rather be in a relationship with someone like Naruto than me?"

Sakura's expression shattered and she shook her head vehemently, letting her tresses dance below her chin. "No! Of course not, Sasuke-kun! It's just that…"

"You have doubts?" It was more of a statement than a question.

The pinkette said nothing, but her eyes betrayed her.

"You shouldn't," he stated smoothly. "I thought you would have realized by now."

"Sometimes there are things that aren't safe to assume, Sasuke-kun," Sakura murmured in response, a distant look on her face. She was staring directly at him, but Sasuke got the strange idea that she wasn't looking at him at all, but at a faraway place somewhere else, in another world perhaps, or maybe even inside of his very heart. (_Wherever_ it was. Sasuke was confident that he was still in possession of a heart, despite what his dobe of a best friend had said about his lack of one throughout the years.) "And sometimes I just want to hear you say, for a change, say that—"

"I love you."

The corners of his lips rose at the sight of the genuine surprise and disbelief that blossomed across Sakura's face. She seemed to have been consumed by incredulity, so he repeated himself one more time, just to make sure she had heard him—

"I love you."

Then he leaned over the table, slowly closed the distance between them, and kissed her.

And kissed her.

And kissed her.

He smirked to himself as she responded softly. She tasted like vanilla latte.

* * *

**a/n: Aah, what do guys think? This is a bit different from how I usually write since I've decided to take a break from writing angst, but I hope you managed to enjoy reading anyway! I originally wasn't going to upload this on here, but I was pretty happy with the response it got on Tumblr, so I ended up posting it anyway.**

**I'm planning to write an alternate ending to this oneshot, which won't be as happy and will hopefully span out to be a multi-chaptered fic in which Sasuke attempts to show Sakura that he does care for her despite his unromantic-ness. Keep an eye out for it if you're interested~**

**Please feel free to leave a review and tell me what you thought of Vanilla Latte. Thank you for reading!**


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